1. Field of the Invention
The present system and method relates generally to communications systems, and more particularly to automatic private Internet Protocol (IP) address selection and assignment in a network.
2. Description of Related Art
Presently, the Internet is a network of virtually connected network-enabled devices using Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP). TCP/IP is a combination of these two means to deliver data from a host to a client that involves converting large data blocks into a plurality of small data packets for transmission across transmission devices. These data packets typically travel through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) before being forwarded to an end user.
An address of a computer or similar networking device attached to a TCP/IP network is called an Internet Protocol address (“IP address”). The IP address is made up of a network address and a host address (i.e., netid and hostid) contained in 32 bits for each TCP/IP packet. Every device communicating over the TCP/IP network has a unique IP address, which may be either a permanent address or one that is dynamically assigned during each network session.
Due to an increase in the number of node in the Internet, there is a potential shortage of public IP address space. In order to preserve a finite amount of public IP address space, ISPs may dynamically assign private IP addresses to the end user instead of public IP addresses. More particular to Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) ISPs, a private IP address may be assigned to the end user's gateway device. In turn, each gateway device assigns private IP addresses to various personal computers and other electronic devices connected to the gateway device, for example, devices in a home network. However, if the private IP address space assigned by the gateway device to various network devices in the home network overlaps with the private IP address space assigned by the ISP to the gateway device, then data packets could potentially get lost or sent to a wrong address.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method to prevent overlap of private IP address space. More particularly, there is a need for a system and method to automatically select and assign non-overlapping private IP address space.